1. Multiple Reasons: It is hard to pin down a universal motivation for cybercrime therefore it is likely to be multifaceted with a multitude of underlying factors contributing towards pushing people into committing cybercrimes.
  2. Money: If I had to choose one of the leading motivations that make up the multiple reasons one would be motivated towards cybercrime it would definitely be for financial gain. Simply by looking at the shear quantity of fraud and scams that occurs on the internet from Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX to pop-up scams targeting the elderly and tech illiterate there is money to be made committing cybercrimes online. Cybercriminal spending habits also to an extent show that as they achieve wealth through their crimes that are able to spend it on luxury products; luxury brands offering their products for crypto-currency seems to show how indicative this is.
  3. Political: Hacktivism is a strong motivation to commit cybercrime from breaching both government and private organizations. As many of the leaks over the past decade have shown ideologically motivated cyber attacks by hacktivists have occurred and have been successful. Extremists are more likely to act on this motivation; due to it being ideologically motivated, and actually fully commit to stealing data in a breach.
  4. Revenge: If someone wanted to be malicious online for revenge most people don’t really have the security measures in place to protect themselves. Actions such as doxing people, or posting sensitive private photos of someone online do occur. Likewise someone if given enough information can impersonate you online to slander you, or just straight up go for identity theft.
  5. Entertainment/Boredom: Robert Burnham’s “Apathy is a tragedy and boredom is a crime” in reference to the internet comes to mind when talking about motivation for cybercrime. As social media and the internet have given people constant stimulation nobody can really sit there and be bored. So more vulnerable demographics can be the target of alleviating the boredom, or if they have the skillset going down the rabbit hole of seeing how far they can get into an individuals or organizations systems.
  6. Recognition: Of all the motivations this seems to make the least amount of sense just due to peoples want to stay behind the veil of anonymity online. As gaining recognition for crimes you commit online seems counter-intuitive but people will always have a degree of vanity or not think things through. To me this being the sole motivation for someone to commit cybercrime is very weak and would more likely be a contributing factor in another motivation.